Commonwealth Fall
by Autumn The Third
Summary: Blake Autumn is the last remnant of the Enclave on the Eastern Seaboard. Seeing nothing available to him in DC, he decides to move North, towards the Commonwealth. His past behind him, he is left to a quiet life. Of course, peace never lasts. What started as a simple decision to assist the remnants of the Commonwealth Minutemen soon spirals into an all-out war with The Institute.
1. Raven Rock's Sole Survivor

**Commonwealth Fall**

 _Chapter One: Raven Rock's Sole Survivor_

Alarms were blaring across Raven Rock, one of the last functioning US Military installations. Certainly one of the last that was staffed by human soldiers who weren't mutated by radiation. However, these soldiers were falling like pins, blasted aside as the bunker's self-destruct system went off. Clad in thick, black suits of hydraulic armour, these well-trained soldiers were dying to the most unlikely of enemies. A nineteen year old boy in a lightly armoured Vault 101 jumpsuit, armed with a historical relic of a weapon.

This person, this monstrous human being, was only trained with an old BB gun in the depths of a Vault-Tec Societal Preservation Chamber, simply called a Vault, and yet he had survived in one of the harshest wastelands that the former United States of America had to offer. He had survived through pure luck, nothing more. Each bullet that hit him seemed to miss major blood vessels, organs, and bone, if they hit at all. No matter where he went, he found more .44 Magnum rounds for his rifle. And through it all, any time he hit the brink of death, he brought himself back with a couple of stimpacks.

He was the Lone Wanderer, and to the Enclave, the people he perceived responsible for the death of his father, he was death.

However, he was not the only youth moving around in the complex.

While the Lone Wanderer held a conversation with the deranged ZAX supercomputer calling itself the President, a seventeen year old was navigating level two, heading for Colonel Autumn's quarters. Very few people were meant to be allowed direct access to this room, indeed it was limited to five people. Colonel Autumn himself, three of his closest advisors…and his only son, Blake.

Blake was fair-haired, lean and muscular, and had bright green eyes like his father. He rounded the corner to the room and pressed the button in the centre of the door, opening it. Blake's eyes darted across the room rapidly, looking for anything more useful than the cracked and nearly drained laser rifle he had snatched off of one of his mentors' corpses in the hallway outside. His eyes flicked to the still intact laser security grid blocking off a trio of weapon crates. With only a few long strides, he was standing in front of the terminal to the grid, typing in the passcode that his dad had given him.

With a flicker, the grid deactivated, and Blake moved rapidly towards the crates, the alarms blaring in his ear. The centre crate opened with a hiss, and Blake grinned widely, Lady Luck finally showing him some good grace. Inside of the crate was a suit of the Enclave's Advanced Power Armour, Mark Two. The design of it though, it was what Blake had taken to calling Navarro Armour. On top of all of the components, an insectisoid helmet glared up at him, the orange-stained eyes capable of boring a hole into any random wastelander's soul.

And yet his luck turned sour again. He faintly heard the loudspeakers chirp out the words "self-destruct" over the blast that tore a large hole in the wall next to him. Fire lanced out and scorched his right cheek, shrapnel barely missing his nose and eyes, but slicing a gash along the skin over his left eye. With a scream, Blake tumbled backwards, roughly landing on his backside. In a rush, he stumbled up, grabbed the armour pieces, shoved them into a duffel bag while throwing cartridges and their matching plasma auto-rifle into another bag. Throwing both bags onto his shoulder, Blake sprinted to the other wall and slammed his hand onto a hidden button. A portion of the wall slid open, revealing a reinforced tunnel that led to a cliff and a power armour frame. The wall slid closed behind Blake as more explosions resonated throughout the remainder of the complex.

Shakily, he crawled to his feet. He looked back at the wall, dropped the bags, and put his head in his hands, silently weeping. However cruel he had heard the Enclave was on the surface, they had been his family for all his life. His best friends, his mentors, even one of his old girlfriends, they had all gone up in flames. It occurred to Blake that even his dad could have still been in the bunker. The one thing that made him happy was hearing the Vertibirds blasting across the sky overhead.

Wiping his face, he opened the power armour bag and began affixing the plates to the frame. Slowly, an intimidating suit of armour came into being as each piece was mounted on the frame. Blake couldn't help but chuckle to himself, this armour was likely the single strongest thing the Enclave had. Of all the things to have been dragged off of the Poseidon Oil Rig, the corpse of one Frank Horrigan was the best item to have been grabbed before the whole rig exploded. Most of the armour had been scrapped, but Blake's great grandfather had saved the raw materials. When he turned fourteen, the materials had been finally made into a functioning suit of armour. And now, at seventeen, it would be what saved his life time and time again.

He pulled out an experimental fusion core he had snagged from the nuclear lab and plugged it into the suit. From what he had heard the scientists muttering about weeks ago, this fusion core could enable the suit's constant usage for upwards of a century. It was an almost neverending fusion core, made from cells scavenged from what could only be called an alien crash site. The suit beeped a few times in short succession, indicating that it was receiving power. With that done, Blake turned his attention to the other bag.

Reaching into it, he removed a short, sleek plasma rifle. Most were a jumble of tubes, wires, and coils, but this one had a casing on it. Blake pulled back a small port on top of the rifle and plugged a cartridge into it, having to smack the top of it down. The rifle beeped once and was silent. That done, Blake pulled out the remaining cartridges and placed them into the ammo pouch built into the right hip of the armour. Throwing both bags aside, he pulled himself up to his full height. The armour still towered over him, but he could fit into it. In fact, it was a little bit too big on him. It would fit him perfectly by the time he finished growing entirely.

With a hiss, the armour depressurised and he stepped into it, the suit sealing itself up with him inside. The heads-up display flickered to life in the corner of his vision, displaying his heart rate, the armour's condition as a percentage, and a compass which currently pointed towards the east. He took a few short steps, the hydraulics syncronising with his footsteps and moving perfectly. All the suit's systems seemed to be functioning, the hermetic sealing keeping the air out. Everything set, Blake grabbed the plasma rifle and walked to the end of the tunnel. After ten seconds of hesitation, he jumped out of the cliff and slammed into the ground below. He would find out what became of the remnants of the Enclave.

They were gone. Anyone who had survived Raven Rock had gone to the water purifier, expecting to hole up there. And yet that vault dweller, the damn Lone Wanderer had bested them again. The Brotherhood of Steel, assisted by associates of the Wanderer, had activated Liberty Prime. With the robot on their side, the Brotherhood had effectively blasted through the soldiers, and the robot had deactivated the photonic resonance barriers between the Pentagon and the Jefferson Memorial. And when the Wanderer had encountered Colonel Autumn in the control room…

He shot him. The Lone Wanderer shot Blake's dad without a second thought, a small smirk on his face. When he reached the control room, his ghoul companion had walked into the control room and activated it. The Lone Wanderer had won, and the Enclave had lost.

That had been about five months ago. Blake had broken down the armour into its plates, kept the core and components in a bag, grabbed a leather overcoat, and started making his way North. His overall destination was Boston, Massachusetts. From what he had heard from caravaneers, it was now simply referred to as "The Commonwealth". Apparently the biggest threat in that wasteland was an organization known only as "The Institute". That had intrigued Blake, apparently the Commonwealth Institute of Technology had adapted to the wasteland in much the same way that the US Government had.

His current objective was simply to make his way to the actual area. At the moment, Blake was only fifty miles south of the southernmost edge of the Glowing Sea, ground zero for the nuclear bomb that had devastated Boston. Blake was stumbling around a pre-war ruin searching for a power armour frame. If he could find the frame, he could put the pieces on it and cut a week off of his travels by going straight through the Glowing Sea in the space of a day if he moved nonstop.

And just his luck, there was a frame sitting there, rusted T45 plates mounted on the frame. It took him less than half an hour to strip the old plates and put the Navarro plates on. By the end of the day, he was at the edge of the Glowing Sea. After a day's rest and careful avoidance of one of the radiation storms, he started off into the sea. Twenty-four grueling hours later, he found himself outside of a Vault, number 95. He slept inside for a short while and left rapidly. It took him another two days to reach the Northeastern corner of the Commonwealth, and within a day he had established a small bunker under the ruins of a coastal cottage.

It took him nearly five months, but he managed to make enough caps by killing raiders for bounties and selling their old gear to traders to buy a small house in what people called the "Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth". Diamond City wasn't ideal, but most people seemed to respect the fact that a nineteen year old showed up with scars and enough caps to pay for a small house high up in the stands. The man's only neighbour was a grizzled old mercenary named Kellogg and what seemed to be his son, Shaun.

It was a quiet life, and it was his life. Occasionally, he would go do some jobs and get enough caps to stock his house with food, but other than that he kept to himself.

Over time, Blake came to be respected for a different reason; he was an exceptional inventor and mechanic. He had created new hydraulics for the main gate of Diamond City, rigged up an intercom system to the outside, and performed repairs on the various robots and the DCR Antenna set. He never charged much for most minor maintenance jobs, really the only ones he charged for were anything that the mayor asked for. Blake never quite got along with Mayor McDonough, the man was more secretive about how the government functioned than Blake was about his Enclave past. That, and the majority of Blake's new friends lived in the Lower Field, an area of the city which never seemed to like the mayor anyways.

It was probably this distrust of the mayor which earned Blake his three closest friends over the years. McDonough had issued a decree against allowing ghouls into the city, driving out numerous residents, including his own brother. Blake ended up making numerous trips to another community in the wasteland that the brother, now going by the name of John Hancock, founded nearby. Hancock had a rather laid back attitude, but whenever someone tried to mess with one of his friends, they could expect a knife to the gut. The local extortionist found that out one morning, and his body was left to rot for three days before it got removed.

Diamond City's local detective, Nick Valentine, was the next one on Blake's list of close friends. He was the only person to ever find out about Blake's Enclave past, having found a piece of the Navarro armour in a locked box one day. Even though Nick knew about it, he didn't seem to care overmuch, as long as Blake didn't suddenly decide to commit genocide. Blake agreed, as long as Nick vowed not to try and replace him. When it came down to it though, Blake's plasma rifle had scorched more than its fair share of Nick's enemies, with the synth covering his back and putting .38 calibre holes into others.

But overall, Blake could safely say that his closest friend was the local journalist, Piper Wright. Having been raised on the American principles, Blake ended up a fierce defender of the newspaper and freedom of press. By extension, he ended up doing as much as possible to keep the printing press rolling, usually just performing repairs on the machine. Occasionally, he ended up having to run security to get Piper from one end of the Commonwealth to the other to get the story down. The only time they had to run away was University Point. Outside of that, however, they formed a close, albeit extremely professional, friendship.

This life continued for numerous years, with Blake taking jobs against Raiders, Super Mutants, Ghouls, and even butting heads with the Gunners over time. And no matter what happened, he ended up on top, though a combination of superior weaponry, training, and willpower. He had more than just money to think about. He had friends. Life in the Commonwealth had mellowed him out, whittling away at the inner Enclave superiority complex and racism that had been a part of his youth.

And then he heard about the Quincy Massacre. And Lexington.

So he grabbed his power armour, his plasma rifle, and walked off to try and save the survivors.


	2. When Freedom Calls

**Commonwealth Fall**

 _Chapter Two: When Freedom Calls_

 _A/N: This chapter works off of the pretense that everyone knows that the Enclave existed, and that they were the bad guys._

In Diamond City, most people had learned to stay out of Blake Autumn's way when he was stalking through town in his shadowed heavy combat armour and carrying his plasma rifle. The only exception to this was Piper Wright. Being a close friend of Blake, she would fall into step beside him only up to the gate. Today, though, was an exception. For the most part, whenever Blake left the city walls, his face was the very definition of blank. In this instance, however, his face was twisted with worry.

It didn't take Piper long to catch up with him, even though Blake was walking faster than usual, as fast as possible in his armour.

"Blake? What's gotcha worried?" Piper started, concern starting to show through her usual mask of sarcasm and quick wit.

"The survivors of Quincy are moving up towards Concord. I've been there before; it's a hotspot for Raiders. Hopefully by the time I get there, there'll still be survivors."

Piper's eyes widened at the news. Most people were fond of at the very least the ideals of the Minutemen. Protecting the people at a minute's notice was a noble goal indeed, but the Minutemen had become unreliable in recent years. But, there still were some noble Minutemen out there. Only one group of them had shown up at Quincy, still loyal to the cause. The thought that the last of them could die up in Concord wasn't a pleasant idea.

"I'm coming with you, Blake. One way or another." She muttered, following quickly after the fully-armed soldier.

"Alright, Piper. I guess you're about to get one hell of a headline today. I hope you're ready to sprint."

It took them nearly three hours to reach Concord. And when they arrived, the sight that greeted them was not pleasant. The Museum of Freedom was under siege by raiders, one Minuteman dead on the front steps and a single figure on the balcony. Blake immediately snapped his plasma rifle to his shoulder and loosed three short bursts, each blob of plasma burning into the chest of a raider. Before he could aim at the next two, a pair of 10mm bullets put them out of their misery. A laser blast from the museum balcony finished off the last raider.

"Hey, up here! On the balcony! I've got a group of settlers inside! The raiders are almost through the door! Grab that laser musket and help us, **please**!"

Blake nodded to Piper, who grabbed the laser musket off of the ground and cranked it up. Thick metal and ceramics clunked across the cement shortly before Blake planted his foot in the center of the door and send it flying backwards, the top hinge breaking off. The two raiders directly inside of the door barely had enough time to yell before a pair of plasma bolts tore through their faces, sending their corpses to the floor.

Piper found that the laser musket was a much better weapon than its scrapped-together appearance let on, the weapon's beam able to take the head off of any raider as long as she cranked its handle twice instead of once. Each time they entered a room, she would fire the first shot and Blake would quickly blast the remaining raiders before they could react. Room by room, they blasted their way up to the third floor of the museum. As they rounded the corner to the walkway, Blake tossed a grenade around the corner, killing both of the raiders who were banging on the door to the room.

The door to the room swung open, revealing a man clad in an old colonial duster and wielding a focused, scoped laser musket. Piper shut the door behind then as Blake strode up to the man.

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing's impeccable. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

Blake simply nodded once, muttering a "glad to help" before starting to check his armour over for damage.

Even though Preston looked a bit off-put by Blake's attitude, he continued speaking anyways. "Well if that's true, we could use some more good will. As you can see, we're in a bit of a mess here."

Blake looked up, seemingly pleased with the condition of his armour. "Alright, how can I help out?"

Preston's face dropped. He sighed, and then started speaking. "A month ago, there were twenty of us. Yesterday, there were **eight**. And now we're five. We figured Concord would be a good place to settle. Those raiders proved us wrong. But…well, we do have **one** idea."

Blake nodded at Preston, a reassuring grin on his face. "One good idea can make all the difference. Let's hear it."

"Sturges? Tell him."

A well-built man in what looked like a welder's outfit leaned away from the terminal he was typing on and turned to face Blake. "There's a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school. Pre-war. You mighta seen it. Well, one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goodie. We're talkin' a full suit of cherry, T45 Power Armour. Military issue."

Blake's reassuring grin widened into a full smile. "Power Armour? I like it."

Sturges chuckled. "Yeah, I thought you might. Protection with an added bonus. Get the suit, you can rip the minigun right off the vertibird. Do that, and those raiders'll get an express ticket to hell. Ya dig?"

Blake's smile only widened at the mention of a minigun. "Minigun? Now we're talkin'."

"I know, right? There's only one hitch. The suit's outta juice. Probably been dry for a hundred years. It **can** be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck."

Preston leaned over, to the pair. "What you'll need is an old, pre-War FC. A standardised fusion core. Your high-grade, long-term nuclear battery, used by the military and some companies way back when. You'll need to find one."

Sturges intervened again. "But we can't get to the damn thing. It's down in the basement, locked behind a security gate. Look, I fix stuff. I tinker. Bypassing security ain't exactly my forte. You can give it a shot."

Blake's face twisted into something that everybody in the room could unanimously describe as devious. "Oh, I already have my own fusion core. Probably still at close to full charge. It should work better than the one in the basement."

Preston nodded. "Well alright. Sounds like our luck's finally turning around. Once you jack that fusion core into the power armour and grab that minigun, those raiders will know they picked the wrong fight."

Blake nodded once and started off towards the roof. "I'm going to perform some basic maintenance on the power armour first. I should only take about ten minutes. After that, I'll be down on the street."

With that, Blake started towards the roof, but was stopped short when Mama Murphy grabbed his arm. "Careful kid. There's somethin' comin'. And it is…angry."

Blake looked down at her, curious. "Can you tell me more about what's coming?"

She looked up at him and started babbling. All Blake could catch was "horns" and "claws". His pupils dilated and he looked over at Piper. He simple uttered one word. "Deathclaw."

Piper's face dropped, and Preston dropped his head into his hands. The Longs stopped pacing and moping and just sat down together, spouses embracing. Sturges, his face was unreadable.

And then Blake remembered what he had grabbed before leaving Diamond City. And he grinned.

"Everyone, can I have your word that what you see will never be mentioned unless necessary or held against me?"

Every single person in the room looked at him, dumbfounded, but after a moment, they all agreed to it. That done, Blake and Piper headed up towards the roof. Blake pushed the door open silently, a rusted old suit of T45 Power Armour and the wreck of a vertibird on the roof before him. He handed his plasma rifle and its cartridges to Piper, who took them with wide eyes. Blake looked back at her, simply telling her to "stay up here and shoot down at anything she saw."

And then he upended the bulging bag he had carried. Pieces of black ceramic casing and titanium spilled out onto the floor, and two pieces came to rest upright. The insectisoid helmet, and the breastplate, the Enclave's "E" logo facing proudly upwards, looking freshly painted. Piper's jaw dropped, and her heart seemed to freeze. Come to think of it, none of Blake's friends had ever learned his last name. He walked up to the suit of T45 and started callously ripping the rusted old plates off, the left arm and right leg actually disintegrating beneath his gloved hands. When all that was left was a bare but still very much functional frame, he began attaching the plates to the armour frame. As he snapped the left shoulder pauldron on, he heard a click from behind him.

"Piper? Are you really pointing a gun at me?" he muttered, barely above a whisper. He turned around to stare down the barrel of a 10mm Pistol. He looked behind the gun to see the confusion evident in Piper's eyes.

"What do you think, Blake? I mean, the Enclave were more of a boogeyman than the Institute! They sacked whole villages out West, they did experiments on the captives, they're bad people. And you're one of them!" Her gun shook with every statement.

Blake turned his back and kept putting the various pieces on the frame. "I know. But I'm not the others. I'm certainly not my dad. He's dead, anyways." He muttered, his tone turning icy with his last statement. As soon as he snapped the helmet on, he turned back around to face Piper. "Down in DC, the Lone Wanderer, as they called him, started waging a personal war against the Enclave, backed by the Brotherhood of Steel. When he got into our bunker, he started killing everybody inside. Set the whole place to self-destruct. I know there were some bad people in the Enclave, some sadists who liked their job. But most of the rest, they were just doing their job. Hell, the President was the genocidal one. The soldiers followed dad's orders when he told them to shoot the Lone Wanderer. And that nineteen year old vault dweller had the entire place blow up."

Piper lowered the gun slightly. "Wait, so your dad…he was…"

"Colonel Augustus Autumn, yes. He could be difficult at times, but he was still very much my dad. And when that bastard wanderer got to the purifier, he didn't flinch or hesitate, he just shot my dad in the head. I heard he even smirked when he did it. I know they were considered to be bad people, it's just…what would you think if someone walked into your life and killed everyone that you knew?" Blake started taking off the combat armour pieces, considering they would never fit in the power armour, revealing a long-sleeved grey shirt and black jeans. "Your friends, mentors…family. I had mine taken from me because everyone thought that we were the "big bad boogeyman". Well, we weren't as bad as they made us out to be. But, I guess that doesn't matter now. So…are you going to shoot me?" With that last question, he turned around.

Piper looked sullenly at him, and just lowered the gun. "Well, I guess you're helping those settlers down there…and you helped save our hides multiple times. I guess if you were going to kill us you would have done it long ago." She sighed, putting her pistol back in its place in her belt. "Well, go ahead. I'll cover you."

Blake nodded once, turned around, and twisted the handle on the back of the suit. The armour folded out to allow him inside, and the instant he was inside, it closed around him. Piper couldn't help but shudder at the dark chuckle coming from inside the helmet. He turned around to look at her, the eyes of the helmet now glowing a deep amber colour. "You stay up here, shoot anyone you see that isn't me or Preston. Alright?" Piper nodded once. Blake slowly stomped forwards on the rooftops, making as much noise as possible. The minigun came free from the vertibird with an ear-wrenching screech. A raider positioned on the rooftop adjacent to the museum looked over at the noise of the disturbance.

The sight that greeted him was a nightmare straight out of the depths of the hell that people would call Raven Rock, or maybe Navarro. A figure in jet black armour stepped out of the wreckage of an old pre-War vertibird. There were exactly five distinguishing features that only terrified this raider more. The insectisoid helmet, the glowing amber eyes, the spinning barrels of the figure's minigun. But the most terrifying part of this figure's appearance was the voice that scratched out from the suit's intercom.

"You raiders have no idea just how deep the shit you're standing in is."

With that, the Black Devil jumped down off of the rooftop and charged the line of raiders. Each one of them screamed and instantly turned around, running the opposite direction of Blake's massive bulk. Minigun bullets sprayed down the entire street, hitting the raiders, old trucks, and walls. One raider stumbled over a metal plate and slammed down onto it. Small bolts of plasma flew past overhead and melted the raider's face. His head popped like a grape, and his blood leaked into a crack in the grate. Blake froze when he heard the sound of banging against the metal. A roar echoed throughout Concord, and the remaining raiders froze and pointed their guns towards the source.

The metal plates flew off of the hole, and a massive Deathclaw climbed out of the hole. Before it could even stand up straight, Blake, Piper, Preston, and all of the remaining raiders started pumping as many rounds into the monstrous being as possible. 5mm rounds tore through the thing's armoured hide like it was paper, and the plasma bolts from the museum rooftop were incredibly beneficial. The raiders were just about only good for distracting it. However, since there were more of them, they're what the Deathclaw targeted first. By the time it had fallen over dead, there were only three raiders left. Blake looked at them, and they looked at him. Blake took one step towards them, and they all bolted.

Satisfied, Blake turned around and stalked back towards the museum, the glowing metal of the minigun finally receiving its chance to cool down. He didn't reach forwards for the door handle, or swing his gun to the side. The two-hundred plus year old wood finally shattered beneath just the force of him walking forwards. Preston Garvey swung his laser musket towards Blake, and then, realising who it was, lowered it by a nominal amount, still not putting it completely away.

"So…you're Enclave, then?" He inquired, almost disbelieving.

Blake nodded once. "My dad was the commander, Colonel Autumn."

Preston looked at him with a combination of fear and…pity? "My condolences, then. Family's family, no matter how bad they are. And I'm pretty sure the whole wasteland knows that you lost yours."

Blake just nodded once; glad to hear that not everybody thought the worst of his past. He looked around at the weary settlers, and decided to speak up. "So, did you guys have a plan for where to go once you got out of this mess?"

It was actually Mama Murphy who finally spoke up. "Sanctuary. It's an old place up just to the North-west of here. The Sight showed me it, it's a wondrous place of safety and prosperity."

Preston stared at her for a good ten seconds before translating her mumblings. "There's a good spot for a settlement up North-East of here. Sheltered, access to water, good soil for crops. You know, it could be a real nice sanctuary once we're established there."

Blake nodded in his armour, the helmet still not displaying emotions. "Alright. Let's get moving. I'll escort."

With that, he hefted his new minigun and the group started off.

Towards Sanctuary.


	3. Out Of Time

**Commonwealth Fall**

 _Chapter Three: Out Of Time_

 _A/N: As a side note, if you found out your best friend was hiding the fact that they were basically a Nazi their whole life, how would you react?_

Sanctuary was actually a nice place. Quiet, peaceful. It was a series of pre-War houses on a small island. Hell, there was still an old, rusted Mr. Handy trimming the hedges of one house. As Blake stomped over to a small yellow house with what looked like a workbench and some other crafting stations, the old robot swivelled its sensors over to Blake. More specifically, his armour.

"Ah, good sir! Might I trouble you for a small task?" the robotic butler inquired energetically as he zoomed over to Blake. Blake, for his part, had a puzzled look behind the mask of his helmet. Preston looked confused as well, and Piper just looked intrigued by the functioning robot.

Blake recovered quickly, nodding a few times. "Sure, what do you need?"

The robot, Codsworth, simply requested that they check the local vault, Vault 111, for any sign of his previous owners, Nathan and Nora Hale. Blake had agreed, out of sympathy for the poor robot. He know personally that if someone had told him that his father was still possibly alive that he'd try to check as soon as possible. Piper had simply glared at him before walking off to work on helping Preston clear out some bloatflies.

It stung a little inside, being snubbed like that. But truly, it was deserved. Over seven years of lying to her about his past had built a bridge that had cracks at the bottom, and that armour was a rocket to the base. Now, he was worse off in her eyes than when he had gotten to Diamond City. Still, looking back on it, he was regretting it less and less. It was only a matter of time until she would have found out anyways, and the longer he had hid it, the more it likely would have hurt her when she did find out. If it was really as bad as it was now, it would have gotten worse the longer he had put it off.

Speaking of bad situations, Blake was stuck staring at a multi-ton steel door. And it was locked into place. From the look of it, the mechanical parts still functioned; it was only a matter of opening it. And to open it, he needed a Pip-Boy 3000. RobCo had a major hand in Vault-Tec's functionalities, inventing the Pip-Boy, providing them with terminals, and creating various control panels. It was possible that a portable terminal could be plugged into the control panel and open the door. It could be possible to hack the control panel of the Vault.

Then, without a second thought, Blake drew his pistol and slammed the grip down on the cover for the button. The cover shattered beneath the force, and then it was quite simple for him to just press the button. An alarm blared, and he could hear hydraulics whirring behind the door. For all the technological genius at RobCo, they weren't exactly the best at making their blueprints real. Case-in-point, the ease of breaking the button cover on the control panel.

Then the seal on the ancient Vault broke, and a massive hiss filled the room. Wind flew past him and into the cracks between the door and the walls. The door creaked loudly as it lumbered sideways, rolling while attached to the massive motor behind it. As soon as the door stopped moving, a walkway slid forward and clanged against the catwalk Blake was standing on. Everything fell silent shortly afterwards, the only sounds left were a slow dripping of water, some metal creaking, and a few radroaches clicking. The eerie silence of a vault was a sound of horror in the wasteland only matched by the roar of a nearby Deathclaw. The part about that which truly made it into some sort of Lovecraftian horror was the fact that an empty, soundless vault was actually a massive, darkened, horrific metal grave. Vault-Tec was not kind at all to the people who put their trust in the company.

Case-in-point, his dad's story of Vault 87, the home of the East Coast Super Mutants. Their skin was yellow, rather than the typical green from places such as Navarro and even his new homeland, The Commonwealth. Vault 87's inhabitants were subjected to the horrors of the pre-War Forced Evolutionary Virus. FEV was the cruellest way to die. It didn't induce actual death, but for most people, being subjected to the stuff was equivalent to death. Muscles would increase in mass, brain cells would die off, the face would contort into a permanent expression of anger, and physiological traits of differing genders would disappear. A normal person would forever be twisted into a mass of green skin, muscle, and stupidity.

Therefore, entering a vault was almost like a game. A sort of question to pose to oneself. What went horrifically wrong with this new vault?

Vault 111 was cold, even from just inside of the door's opening. A quick search of the area revealed a mass of old boxes, a pair of radroaches that rapidly ended up crunched underneath of a combat armoured boot, and a few skeletons. Two of which were scientist skeletons, and one of which had a Pip-Boy. Two minutes later, Blake was walking down a darkened corridor, his new Pip-Boy illuminating the walls and floor. Rust coated the walls and numerous radroaches scurried forwards to end up crushed underneath of his boot.

It was eerily silent, save for the clank of his armoured boots against the floor and the humming of some sort of machine further back in the Vault. The door to the left when he entered the vault had rusted shut, but the door to his right was an exit tunnel that he assumed would lead directly to the Overseer's office. Even though the door was latched shut, a bit of trickery using his Pip-Boy's wired interface opened the door easily. And colour him surprised, it was the Overseer's office. Aside from a skeleton behind the desk, a couple of stimpaks, and an old 10mm pistol with some ammo, the office was devoid of anything valuable.

The ammo, that could be used in what he had managed to sneak out of his dad's quarters before the incident. The stimpaks were always useful. Portable, localised medkits. Blake proceeded to remove the magazine that was also in the actual gun on the desk. Then he looked to his left and saw a cage with an open security gate. The cage didn't contain much, just a bit of extra ammunition for the pistol. That, and a freeze gun.

"I think I'm starting to figure out what this vault's experiment was." Blake muttered as he started trying to pick the lock. After about seven broken bobby pins, he did to the case as he had to the vault door's control panel. This proved to be less effective than before, only cracking the casing. Another two smacks to the case went by, and Blake simply resorted to shooting it open. Finally, the small hole created by the bullets he put into the side of the casing allowed him to reach a finger inside of the case and manually unlock it from the inside. Blake then proceeded to wrap that finger in his other hand until he regained feeling in it. The cold of the vault, combined with the cold of the case, was really not a good combination for avoidance of cryopathy.

Lacking anything else to do, Blake sat down at the terminal and deviated from his finger's reheating to click onto the entry marked "Cryolator" He skimmed it briefly, guessing that it was in reference to the gun in the case. Apparently the ammo would be very difficult to find. Making it himself would be another thing. A nice challenge, if Blake wasn't the second most incompetent chemist in The Commonwealth. Engineering was his specialty, electronics worked very well with him. Biology and chemistry were foreign areas for him, and he never cared much about learning in the first place.

Blake finally stood up, flexed his almost frozen finger, and walked back over to the case, swinging it open. The Cryolator was, in truth, very similar to the old plasma rifles that the Enclave would use. There was a mass of exposed wires and tubes, owing in part to its experimental design. Eight cells accompanied the device, all at full charge. Looking over the end of the gun, Blake decided that it was essentially, a flamer that shot ice. It was best not to waste the ammo.

The Cryolator and its ammo went into a Vault-Tec messenger bag he found in the Overseer's quarters. That finished, he started back off down the other hallway. Presumably, this hall would eventually lead to the living quarters. Blake hit the end of the hallway and found…something. It certainly wasn't living quarters, at least, not the normal kind.

The entire hallway was lined with cryostasis pods. And they all had flashing lights on the front. Red, flashing lights. And two of the pods were open. And there was a man on the floor in front of one of the open pod across from him. Blake immediately ran over to the man and tried to help him up. The man was soaked through, stiff, and gasping for breath. Even with treatment, he wouldn't make it out of the vault. Blake moved him into a sitting position against the empty pod. Kneeling down, he extended the needle on one of the stimpaks and jammed the thing into the man's right lung, giving him another ten minutes, at the most.

"What happened in here?" Blake asked, almost unable to comprehend that someone was still alive from before the war.

The man stirred slightly, and looked up. "The bastards…th-they k-k-killed my w-wife…" he muttered, pointing at the other cryopod, occupied by a dead woman who had a single bullet hole in her chest. Blake looked at the man sympathetically before he walked over and moved the body into a position next to the dying man.

The man pulled the corpse closer, intertwining his arms with her lifeless ones.

"Who did this to you and her?" Blake asked, sitting down on the other side of the man.

"B-bastard had a sc-sc-scar…like yours. H-he was b-bald…had a light b-beard…handgun. H-his voice was like g-gravel." The man breathed out slowly, dying faster. A small line of dark blood had started to trickle from his nose.

Blake's eyes hardened. Kellogg. That old merc had lived next door to him since he arrived. Kellogg had left about a month ago. "What else did the bastard do?"

The man's eyes glazed over. "He k-kidnapped my son, S-S-Shaun. P-please…f-find him and…tell him d-daddy loves him." With that, the last survivor of the Vault 111 Cryostasis Experiment closed his eyes and joined his wife in the cold embrace of the icy tomb they had thought would be their salvation when the world was set ablaze. Blake looked down at the man with utter sadness on his face. Kellogg was bad, but this was a new low. He looked at the man's closed eyes and nodded. "I promise…I won't stop looking until I find him."

With that, Blake stood up and walked back towards the vault's exit. The reason that a bastard like Kellogg had lived for so long is that nobody had been able to kill him. Then again, most people that tried had only cared about the money. Blake had a different reason now. This wasn't for money, or revenge. This was about a vow that he had made to a dying man. The vault door hissed shut behind him, sealing the place back up. He stepped back onto the elevator platform and began his ascent to the surface.

Had he spent his whole life underground, the light that stuck his eyes upon resurfacing would have been nearly blinding. Since he had lived on the surface for just over a decade, the light was just a minor annoyance. In truth, the vault door's elevator he was stood on had a magnificent view of the entirety of the Commonwealth. The skyscrapers of Boston stood tall in the distance, trees scattered about the open areas between the skyscrapers and him. The yellow and blue houses of Sanctuary sat there, just at the bottom of the hill. The Red Rocket on top of the gas station peeked out over another, more distant hill. Even though it was a massive expanse of death, destruction, and depression, The Commonwealth was a beautiful place. What he wouldn't give to see that for the first time.

Well, the only thing he wouldn't give was something recently shattered. He wondered shortly if he should just leave. Go northwest. Perhaps there was something left of upstate New York. Maybe Canada had survived the worst of the war; there wasn't exactly anything up there. Blake shook his head clear of those thoughts; he still had a bit of a life here in Boston. In The Commonwealth. His…home. It was actually a comforting thought. He still had a home here in the ruins of one of the great centres of innovation. Besides, he lived in **the** old baseball stadium, Fenway Park.

"I'm just stalling, aren't I?" Blake muttered to himself. With a sigh, he started back towards the path back down. After a pause in his walking, he turned back around and walked towards the short path down towards Sanctuary. He climbed down the cliff as quickly as possible, turning around and walking across the short bridge and into Sanctuary again. Preston, Sturges, the Longs, Mama Murphy, and Piper were all sitting in various chairs near the old workbench in front of the yellow house, just talking. Codsworth was still cutting the bushes in front of the Hale house.

Codsworth rotated around suddenly and started flying over towards him. "Sir, did you find anything?"

Everyone who had been sitting around suddenly turned around and looked at Blake. Not Codsworth, the one who had started talking, but Blake. He sighed, and walked over to Codsworth, trying to compose the words in his head. Blake just muttered a curse to himself and started talking. "Codsworth, Mr Hale is…in a better place. He joined his wife."

Codsworth looked as distraught as a floating robot could. "And…what about young Shaun?"

Blake's mine instantly flashed back to the promise he had made in the cryogenic stasis rooms. Well, now he had a short-term plan for life. Find Shaun, get him to Codsworth and a loving family, and then he'd go back out west. Maybe find some sort of life in the ruins of Detroit. They probably didn't look any worse than the day before the bombs fell. "Someone took him, Codsworth. But I'll find him. I gave Mr Hale that much of a promise."

Looking just past the old robot, he could see that just about every member of the group had an expression of either shock or disbelief on their faces. Codsworth was muttering words of gratitude, but Blake wasn't truly listening. He could see a large measure of respect on Preston's face, and a much lesser amount on Piper's. He muttered some form of a goodbye to Codsworth and walked back over to the group. Kellogg, he'd find the bastard and shoot him in the legs. Then the head, once he got what he needed. Really, he could just feel the questions coming before they were even asked.

"So, you're going to hunt down a two-hundred year old corpse?" The sarcasm stung a bit more than usual, considering that it came from Piper.

"The entire vault was a cryogenic storage facility. I talked with Mr Hale himself. If he was still alive from before the war, his son could be. I'm going to find him, I owe him that much." Blake was adamant. Besides, if Hale had seen Kellogg, then his son couldn't have been thawed out too long ago.

"Wait, he was alive before the war? So he was two hundred years old?" Piper looked astonished, almost disbelieving.

"He was. And before he, well, died, he told me who took his son. Do you remember Kellogg, the merc who lived up next to me in the upper stands?" Details were important, and Blake had talked about his neighbour often.

"Yeah, wait. You're saying that Kellogg took Hale's son?"

"Yes, I am. But he left Diamond City on business about a week ago. Maybe Nick can help us find him." In truth, that was easier said than done. Nick had disappeared a few weeks back on business. To find Hale's son, they would need to find Kellogg. To help them find Kellogg, they would need to find Nick. There was still some resentment between them because of the lies, but it would be easier than having to track a skilled mercenary across the wasteland alone. They went to start off to Diamond City, but they were stopped by a man in a colonial duster.

"I know you've got a job to do, but do you got a minute?" Preston looked weary, and actually a bit desperate.

"What do you need, Garvey?" Blake was curious as to what Preston wanted.

"I got word of a settlement asking for help from the Minutemen. I'm pretty sure I'm the last Minuteman, but I can't help out because I've got my hands full with the rest of the people from Quincy. Could you maybe go and help them out?" An offer to join the Minutemen, in essence. Perhaps he could help reunite the Commonwealth.

"What settlement needs help?"

"Tenpines Bluff. They're having trouble with a group of Raiders. If ya got the time, go help them out. Maybe they'd reconsider supporting the Minutemen." Hope. Just what the Commonwealth needed. A rebuilt Minutemen would provide a sense of hope.

"Alright Garvey, I'll do it. I'll set off right now, so that I'm not backtracking." Blake set off towards a settlement that needed help.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Enclave?" Piper sounded slightly mocking again. Blake turned around and looked back at his power armour. He shrugged and got into the suit. It sealed shut around him with a hiss, and he actually grinned to himself. This was working well for him. But then again, Piper. He sighed and stepped back out of the suit, turning to face her.

"Piper, I'm pretty sure there are no words for how badly I messed up. If there's anything I can do to help redeem myself, I'll do it." Blake just noted how dejected he sounded only after he said it.

"Well…you're doing a decent job already. But when we get back to Diamond City, I want your story. Without the lies. Tell me about how life was as the son of the Enclave." She sounded incredibly stubborn about this. Nothing outside of how she usually was.

"Alright Piper. But first, let's go help this settlement with their raider problem." With that, Blake pulled himself into his power armour and started off towards Tenpines Bluff. Piper followed shortly. Raiders were scumbags, and any chance to punch their heads in was good enough for both of them. Helping the settlers was an added bonus. So east it was. Towards Tenpines.

 _A/N 2: Don't expect constant updates. You've seen how long it took Chapter Three to come out. These chapters are starting to get long, and we have our start to the main story. As another side note, I'd be willing to create a game save with Autumn at the exit to Vault 111, with only his dad's pistol. It'll be modified, he'll have certain perks, and his SPECIAL will be set. S=2, P=4, E=3, C=8, I=8, A=5, L=5. Preset perks will be Gunslinger II, Gun Nut II, Armourer II, Science II, Locksmith II, Commando I, Mysterious Stranger I, Hacker I, Intimidation I, and Nuclear Physicist I._


End file.
